Thursday, July 22, 2010

Hey, guess what? Hiking gear is packed and we're about to get on an airplane. There are a few posts set for the next couple of weeks--mainly Sunday's Psalms, but don't expect to see much of me around otherwise till we get home, okay!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

We are going on an Adventure, so this is a perfect start for the seventh round (my sixth) of ABC Wednesday. I do not expect to be back till the letter D, and will catch up with B and C then. I imagine that this adventure will present me with lots of ABCs--perhaps I should watch for them particularly.

One very special part of the adventure--well, I think I might save it for the letter D.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Coming to the end of another alphabet--Z is always a little more difficult than some of the other letters. I must thank Dina from Jerusalem Daily Photo, whose Zones of Silence post suggested the idea of some other zones to me, the ecological zones of Mt. Rainier National Park.

We start at the lower elevations, with the Forest Zone, where abundant rainfall and melting snowpack from above provide for a lush dense growth of a wide variety of green plants.

Hiking through the old growth forest on a warm day is a cooling experience. Ferns, fungus, mosses, lichens, and a variety of cool weather wildflowers carpet the ground. Nurse logs provide a new base for new saplings.

Critters in the forest include some you might be squeamish about.

So, now lets go up to a higher elevation--the Sub-Alpine Zone. Once the snow melts, the lush meadows are home to a rainbow of wildflowers, starting with these Avalanche Lilies and their companion yellow Glacier Lilies, the first to pop through the snow.

Further up the slope we reach the Alpine Zone--conditions so severe that the few trees are only a few feet tall after a hundred year's growth. The soil is thin and rocky.

The area is similar to Arctic tundra. Growing season is so very short...

So, as you see, are the plants. The variety of lupine that grows in this area has leaves that measure--yes, those are centimeter marks, not inches, on the walking stick. Lupine leaves in the sub-Alpine zone measure three to four inches across.

In the rocky reaches of the Alpine Zone, we saw dozens of pika the other day.

So thank you again, Dina, for suggesting that Z is for Zones. Thank you to Denise for another successful round of ABC Wednesday. Thank you to the team for keeping us going. You will find the other ABC-Z entries listed here.

Approximately ten thousand people a year attempt the summit of 14,410 foot Mt. Rainier.

About half of them make it. the others turn back becasue of weather (not an issue this past weekend when these were taken), altitude sickness, or fatigue. Many go with guide services. Others do the climb with friends. Many do it more than once. It requires proper equipment, training in climbing skills, and determination.

For those forced to turn back because of weather or other dangerous conditions, it may be a disappointment, but the mountain will be there another day. We saw a helicopter airlift an injured climber off the mountain yesterday. He was injured on the way down, so after a successful summit.

And that's the story from the top of my world, where among other things, we shoveled some snow this weekend and marked trails to make them safer for those of us whose top of the world looks more like the first picture.

Packed skis form triangles on the backs of these hikers looking for extreme adventure in the back country. They didn't really want to be hikers--a week or two earlier there had been even more snow and they could ski into their adventure site.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

I took this a couple of years ago as we were waiting at the flagger for some road construction. the guy who went up to talk to her looked pretty annoyed. What body language! The lane opened up pretty quickly after this picture, so he didn't get a chance to act on his anger. We didn't mind the wait, the previous summer that road had been closed after being washed out completely in the winter's storms and you couldn't get through at all. The detour, if you wanted to get from one end of the Eastside Road to the other was three hours over two passes.

Isn't it enough that the flaggers and other road crew have to contend with the hot sun or the rain to do their job, but also crazy drivers and angry ones. Give 'em a brake!

Those green lights aren't doing anybody any good since the road behind me is closed. No traffic the morning I chose this as my walking route, but it was early. I walk early to get my miles of training in because it is getting pretty hot in the afternoons.

This will serve for SkyWatch Friday and for the Weekend Reflections hosted by James. I could have used it for my Thursday Working feature as well, but I've been waiting to use the flagger picture.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

I used Yarrow in Round Two--my first round of ABC Wednesday--but I have a nice yard full of YARROW right now. Our lawn in front masquerades as a meadow. Most of the more colorful meadow flowers in the meadow/lawn/yard have faded. Some of them were yellow.

Oops! I see a couple of nasty weeds that I had better deal with.

Each individual flowerlet is perfect in itself.

~

We also have a YELLOW rose in bloom--well mostly yellow. On another bush the buds are yellow but are pink when they open out. Interesting.

About Me

I am a Grandma blogger, posting some regular stuff on some regular blogs--photos and memes. Most recently I have primarily participated in a weekly header challenge, but hopefully I will get back to more regular blogging again.